1. Check your leaders tab and re-arrange as necessary. Opt to recruit a research lead and check if there are more suitable ones. Ideally you want new worlds specialisation, survey speed, experience gain, maniacal...

If you’re coming from other 4x games (e.g. Civ, MoO, Endless Space, etc), you’ll find that the process of absorbing other empires through military conflict is a bit more nuanced in Stellaris. This is...

Fanatic spiritualist has a basic -30% ethics divergence. Add -10% from “divine mandate” and you start with 40% before lifting a finger. An early tech for spiritualists is the “symbol of unity” at ~150?...